


Next time

by SunsetSwish



Series: Tropes2016 [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), SPECTRE (2015)
Genre: Gen, Trope Bingo Round 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 19:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6341911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunsetSwish/pseuds/SunsetSwish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A car, a chase, a broken window.</p>
<p>Prompt: Death fic for 2016 Trope Bingo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next time

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to forfeit this square, actually, since this is so not my cup of tea. Of course, as irony would have it, it's the one I'm starting with instead.

The window doesn't shatter in a dramatic spray of dull shards. There's barely any damage to the pane at all, except for the entry point. It seems too small to be cause of much damage.  
  
The way it _happens_  isn't what matters to Q. It's pain. It's sharp, stabbing, violent in the way it catches him unprepared, even though he's been running on adrenaline ever since they'd set out to do this thing. It makes him gasp, a choked sound he didn't really mean to make.  
  
Soon drowned out by shock the pain passes, turning into a throbbing deep under his collarbone.  
  
Q's world narrows in a way that only allows him to take in one fact at a time. There are some pieces of glass which slide off of him when he moves. He's bowed down, leaning to the right with his right hand clutching at the worst throbbing spot. His fingers feel slippery on his skin.  
The others are calling to him from the front seats. Q focuses on the voices, pulls himself together enough to fight the panic. Answering, however, proves impossible when the only thing to come out at his attempt is blood. Dizzy from the taste alone, Q hunches over more to rest his head against the upholstery. His laptop, forgotten, ends up being pushed down into the relatively safe space on the floor behind the passenger's seat.  
  
With his eyes shut, Q loses seconds and minutes. They're still on the move and there are still insistent voices asking him questions. He hears cursing. Moneypenny must be turned sideways in her seat because he feels her hands on him, trying to get to where he's been hit. He doesn't uncurl while she adds her strength to his own hold on the wound.  
  
The car stops for a second, jostling him, and the next he knows he isn't alone in the back anymore. This time he's being pushed down with with more pressure, forced to half-lie still. This new hand pushes his own completely away to take its place in covering the ball of pain inside.  
It's a strong hand, rough, larger than his and it can't be Bond's so it must be M's.  
  
There's talking but he isn't being talked _to_  so he goes back to thinking.  
  
There used to be a time when they said he wouldn't make it to twenty. Then they doubted he'd live to see twenty five. He's going to die at thirty and won't that show them just how good he was?  
  
Not good enough to finish his bloody job.  
  
And it is bloody. It's hot where it's seeped into his clothes and it's sticky where there's the hand pressing at his throat. It feels like a good hold, like it's the way you should do it when someone's bleeding out in your car. M would know the right way to do this, Q thinks. And isn't it nice, to be in the field with one's boss. Q won't have to worry about the after-report or about any missing details of how he'd died if M is there to get the first-hand account. But there's still... He knows there's still the huge problem with C and they're still fucked, and they _weren't going_  to be before he got shot.  
  
If he can't do it, someone else has to. Raising his hand comes with some coordination difficulty, which Q eventually overcomes. He really needs to get to his phone. They won't be getting a new Quartermaster out of this, it's just one favour Q has left to call in, only he won't be able to do it himself.  
  
"Stay still." M says, his voice rough. Intercepting Q's hand he brings it back down. He's trying so hard, looks so concerned, Q would tell him it was okay if he could. He gives back a squeeze meant to be reassuring. It might just be a little too desperate instead.  
  
The contrast in touch lets Q realise just how cold he's become. The tips of his fingers are tingling, the sensation slowly but surely spreading up his limbs.  
  
M has only two arms, both of them occupied, and Moneypenny can't reach this far so Q fishes the phone out with his left hand in as few moves as possible. He holds it up between the backrest and M's side, where it's hard to see at this angle when he pulls up contacts and scrolls down. To make things worse, blood smears all over the screen, causing the list to stutter under his fingers. After long seconds of trying to get it right, Q stops and drags a twisting line through the mess on the screen instead. There's only one S-contact on this phone. Let them figure it out.  
Awkwardly, he brings the phone closer and thrusts it between himself and M. It lands as an insubstantial weight on his chest. They notice but Q isn't sure they understand. A renewed attempt at speaking ends much like the first - a promise from Q's own body to drown him with blood if he tries again. He doesn't try.  
  
M is talking now, which Q makes out to be a request for Tanner to stop. They might as well. The constant movement wasn't helping him any, and either way...  
  
It wouldn't have helped if he'd got shot at the ER's door; it would always have been too late. He's gone when they're two intersections away from the hospital.


End file.
